


Fallen

by wishingwithoutwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in the Bunker, Castiel is Not Okay, First Kiss, Human Castiel, I wanted to do more places but I gave up, M/M, POV Castiel, Post-Series, Road Trips, Sightseeing, but Dean is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 02:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16379483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishingwithoutwings/pseuds/wishingwithoutwings
Summary: Dean invites him in, and he goes willingly, gratefully, happily. The metal door clashes shut behind them; he is inside with the promise of permanence, and relief overwhelms him.





	1. Chapter 1

Dean invites him in, and he goes willingly, gratefully, happily. The metal door clashes shut behind them; he is inside with the promise of permanence, and relief overwhelms him.

The weight of his new humanity weighs on him in every aspect possible. He is tired, hungry, tied down, bounded by the limits of this body. Over the next couple days, as he does not leave the bunker, an itch develops, one that he is unable to scratch. The Winchesters go about their business, not seeming to notice anything wrong, generously incorporating him into their lives as seamlessly as possible. He doesn't blame them; the itch is almost negligible to his own awareness, but it is there nevertheless. It grows, so infinitesimally as to be unnoticeable, but it does grow.

He lurches to the realization one night that it has grown too much, and he frantically picks things up and puts them back down, looking for something, anything, that would scratch the itch. He finally gives up, breathing harshly, scrabbling at his throat, then races up the stairs and slams through the door that has been caging him in. He shudders to a stop in the cold, night air, breathing, breathing.

Every night from then on, after the Winchesters have bade him good night and gone to sleep in their own beds, he ascends the quietly creaking metal steps towards the fresh air outside. He sits on a ledge above the bunker entrance, as high as he can get. The stars shine their glory upon him in his tranquility, and he often sits there through the night, dozing, gripping the ledge with whitened and frozen fingertips, unable to fully sleep, reveling in the periodic rushes of cold air buffeting his body.

However, a week of this has dark bags under his eyes; another week and he has stopped talking, the croak of his tired vocal cords painful. The Winchesters, especially Dean, have begun visibly worrying, but he does not care. He lives for those times, every night, when he can reach his arms as high as they go, towards the swirling winds with which he once flew.

But every night, as his body deteriorates from lack of sleep and he grips the stone edge ever harder, he is being dragged down, down towards the center of the earth, down and away from Heaven, down from where he had ridden on the curls of the atmosphere, down. He cannot stop it, no matter how much higher he tries to climb, no matter how long he stays outside, he cannot escape it, the weight bearing down on him wherever he goes.

Dean forces him to eat at the times the three of them come together in the bunker's kitchen. He simply sits, watching the food disappear down the brothers' throats, reading disquiet in Sam's bouncing knee, reading worry in Dean's furrowed brow as he looks at him. He runs his fingers along the metal table, feeling the chill, thinking of the wind outside, of the tornado he once was. Occasionally, he watches Dean, his mindless movements tight with worry, thinking of the brightness that still echoes out from his core, a remnant, a shadow, of what he used to see.

"Cas?"

Castiel smiles at him, the expression taking excessive energy to muster up. The weight upon him, that horrible absence that constantly presses him, forcibly turns the corners of his mouth down after he directs his attention from his own face. Dean smiles back hesitantly, and pushes towards him a plate of…pancakes. It is morning, Castiel remembers, because Dean and Sam have just gotten out of bed, fresh from sleep. He does not move to touch the plate.

"Cas, please."

Castiel closes his eyes. His body, betraying his mind, reacts on its own to Dean's pleading voice, as it always has. His hands reach for a fork, and the piece of pancake that Dean has cut out for him enters his mouth. Castiel takes a few more bites, then pushes the plate away, standing slowly. He looks at Dean, then Sam, who are both watching him, then retreats to the library, the most spacious room in the bunker. As he walks away, he hears the brothers pick up a conversation.

"Sam, he doesn't eat, doesn't talk, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't sleep either. What the fuck is wrong? He seemed fine two weeks ago when we came back."

"Dean, I think he misses his grace. He goes outside every night, I've seen him, and stayed up there for as long as I stayed up."

Silence.

Then, "I'm worried about him, Sam. I'm really worried."

"Yeah, me too."

Their voices fade as Castiel moves further away towards the library. But he doesn't make it there, as his stomach constricts and he stumbles into the nearest bathroom, heaving the pancakes into the toilet. His stomach seizes again and again, even after it's empty, making him dry heave until he's breaking a sweat, clammy hands grasping the edges of the toilet bowl desperately.

He hears the pounding of feet, though that might just be his head protesting. But no, Dean smacks the half-open door to the bathroom out of his way, settling a warm hand on Castiel's back, guiding him through, murmuring meaningless reassurances. When the heaving finally stops, Castiel sits back against the wall, eyes closed, Dean's hand on his thigh sending zinging signals through his body, as it always has.

"Cas, I-"

He stops. He doesn't seem to know what to say. Castiel keeps his eyes closed, chest rising and falling rapidly, taking comfort against the cold wall from the lightning being emitted from Dean's touch.

"Cas, please, tell me what's going on. I'm worried about you, man, you're not taking care of yourself."

Castiel opens his eyes, taking in Dean's beautiful face, still glorious without the shine of his soul behind it. Castiel chews his lip, slowly, methodically, then moves his hand to cover Dean's. Dean looks down at their hands together, and Castiel squeezes. Then he moves Dean's hand off his thigh, stands, and goes to his original destination, leaving Dean looking after him sadly.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean is packing, grabbing things from around the bunker and tossing them into two duffel bags open on the library table. Castiel sits where he had been sitting since the morning and watches him, eyes sliding closed once in a while in exhaustion. He notices that one of the pajama pants that Dean had given him eons ago goes into one of the bags. Perhaps Dean is leaving and taking all his possessions, having finally given up on Castiel. He ignores the diminished wrench of pain that the thought triggers.

He looks down at the book he retrieved from the shelf but forgot to open and pushes it away. It was some kind of history of some kind of demon that he thought he would be interested in--he would have been before--but, lost in thought, no longer cared about. Dean, in his flurry, is much more interesting. Castiel will likely sit here for hours more after Dean left, possibly grieving Dean's loss of faith in him.

Which is why Castiel nearly lets out a sound of surprise when Dean grabs him by the arm--not gently, but not too rough either--and says, "Come on, Cas, we're going for a car trip. I've got all your stuff."

Dean piles him into the car, patting a thick blanket onto his lap. He says, "Stay warm, with this. It's October, and Baby's heating's shot, so don't freeze to death." He smiles when Castiel nods slowly. "Good. Thanks, Cas."

 

As they trundle up the Interstate, Castiel watches a peregrine falcon fly with them, cutting through the air efficiently and magnificently. Its wings are dark, feathers outlined with lighter gray, and Castiel feels an especially painful pang of want for his own wings, dark and shot through with light. The falcon swoops and soars, all the while seemingly following the Impala. Castiel is still looking out the window, watching it, when Dean speaks.

"So, since there's literally nothing in Kansas, we'll go to Colorado and see what they've got there. I think there's a couple things to see, dunno yet, we can ask some of the locals."

Castiel has lost sight of the falcon; it had wheeled away somewhere to the south. He looks down at the rearview mirror. _Objects in mirror are closer than they appear._ But nothing is in the mirror apart from the fields being whisked away as they drive, and Castiel scoots himself down to rest his head on the back of the seat, waiting for something to appear.

\--

Castiel wakes to the smell of burgers. They are parked in a dilapidated parking lot next to a diner, and Dean is hungrily scarfing down handfuls of fries. He perks up when he sees that Castiel is awake.

"Mmm!" He scrabbles for a paper bag and pulls out a foil-wrapped burger, swallowing quickly. "Here, man. I didn't want to wake you, you needed the sleep. I got your favorite."

Castiel takes the burger, slowly unwrapping it. It's fresh, the smooth bread cracking beneath his fingers. He feels Dean's eyes on him, and takes a bite to please him, mushing the meat around in his mouth before swallowing. Dean's blinding smile greets him when he looks back at him.

"Alright. We're gonna drive a bit more, I just got a craving, you know? I asked around, looks like the Rocky Mountain National Park is the most epic. It's gonna be maybe another hour, then we can find a motel or something."

Castiel looks down at his burger, and takes another bite. Dean grins at him and starts the car, swinging an arm onto the back of the seat to back them out of the parking space. Castiel watches him, easy movements relaxed and reassured, fingers tapping on the wheel along with the music turned low on the stereo.

As they drive, Castiel takes periodic bites, but the time in between becomes longer and longer. At last, when more than half the burger is still left, no matter how hard he tries to keep it in his mouth, he has to spit one out, and he scrambles for a bag. Dean grabs the paper bag the food was in and dumps it out on the seat between them, handing it to him. Castiel spits the bite out, barely managing to keep the rest of the burger in his stomach. He coughs, then puts the bag down.

Dean smiles sadly at him. "Hey, man, thanks for trying."

Castiel looks away.

\--

The motel is ratty and unkempt, but it is better than most of the motels that Castiel knows the brothers have shared. Nevertheless, there is a niggling sense of resentment that he feels; not necessarily towards Dean, but towards this life, this raggedness.

Dean seems right at home. He throws their two duffels down on the beds, putting the beers he bought into the fridge. He then flops down on one of the beds, disregarding the small cloud of dust that rises with his weight. Castiel perches on a chair near the tiny table.

Dean groans, stretching.

"Cas, go to sleep. Or at least try. We're gonna go tour the national park tomorrow, gotta have at least some energy to walk around everywhere. MmmmHH! Jesus, I'm too old to drive for that long. Cas, remind me to not drive for that long. Christ."

They get ready for bed, Dean humming some ACDC song, mouthing the words under his breath. Castiel pulls a soft shirt from Dean's duffle, having always preferred Dean's worn clothing to his own brand-new, unforgiving ones. Dean does a double-take when he sees him, but doesn't comment.

Castiel settles into the creaking motel bed, wishing that it would make less noise so as not to wake Dean. The Winchester's snores are pleasantly distracting from Castiel's swirling thoughts.

Dean is being kind, Castiel tells himself. _I chose this_ , Castiel repeats in his mind, a mantra he's taken up recently. This is what he wanted, to rebel from Heaven and live amongst the humans whom he holds in the highest esteem. And Dean is truly fulfilling that role, continuously giving himself now to Castiel, and Castiel should be grateful, but there is only emptiness, sadness, guilt.

Dean shifts in his sleep, and the blanket falls to his midriff, revealing a bare shoulder where his shirt has ridden up. A blank shoulder, clear of the mark that Castiel left on him and any other blemishes. Yet another signal of Castiel's former grace erased.

\--

The National Park is beautiful.

Castiel goes apprehensively, following a bouncing Dean who keeps glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, as if waiting for a reaction to some unseen joke. They park the Impala under a small group of trees in front of some delicately placed logs, then trek up a hill, directed by the flimsy map Dean received from a park ranger.

At the top, Dean nearly keels over, completely out of breath. But Castiel is too enraptured to notice, as the trail opens up to a downhill panoramic view of the forest, a wide, rich green expanse of leaves teeming with life. The sun's rays flash through bubbles of cloud and sparkle on sparrows darting through the branches. Wind sweeps Castiel's hair back from his face, and as he looks out across the small valley filled with trees, he takes the first clear breath he's had in a while.

"All right, huh?"

Dean, chest still heaving slightly, claps a hand on Castiel's shoulder as he walks up to the edge of the hill. Castiel stares at him with wide eyes, then returns his gaze to the soft waving of the tree branches in the wind. There's so much pure _life_ here that Castiel is almost overwhelmed; he closes his eyes, and still hears the birds twittering, leaves whispering, faint sounds of animals shouldering their way through brush. And of course, Dean's warm presence, breaths evening out to match the pulsing of the forest around them, and Castiel's frenzied storm of regretful thoughts finally slow down to a soft murmur.

Castiel reaches out, finding Dean's arm and sliding down to his hand, clasping it, fingers entwined, ignoring Dean's small intake of breath, and breathes.

\--

Dean buys them burgers on the way back to the motel, and Castiel devours it all.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean decides to take them to the Grand Canyon next. Apparently, he says, it was raining in the other places he had planned on going to. Castiel acknowledges this with a slight incline of his head, slumped down in his seat with his head pillowed on the backrest. He's chewing methodically on a granola bar, reveling in his returned appetite. Empty wrappers litter the front seat between him and Dean, and there is a bag of cheap snacks at his feet; Dean had been overly excited to buy them for him, in Castiel's opinion, but he needs to make up for weeks of not eating well, so he's grateful.

They're driving on a road cutting through an empty wheat field when Dean speaks, quietly, seriously.

"Cas," he says.

Castiel is turned to the door, and he begins to move his arms to shift himself over, but he freezes when he hears Dean's next words, spoken so low they're almost whispers.

"Cas, I should really be telling you this when you're awake, but I just…um. I don't know if this trip is helping. I'm thinking it is, at least a little bit, since you're sleeping and eating again, but it's been weeks, almost a month, and you haven't said a word. I mean," here he chuckles a bit, "you never were the most chatty Kathy, but we could talk, you know? I…you always preferred talking over other stuff." He pauses for a long time, and Castiel almost thinks that was all, but Dean starts again. "I get this feeling you're not all there, and I don't mean your grace; I mean, like, part of yourself has gone away, inside, I guess to grieve? At least, that's what Sam said, that you're grieving what you lost when you fell." Another pause. "And I feel so bad, man, because you fell for us, and it obviously wasn't worth it at all, and you probably regret ever meeting us, and I just--" He cuts himself off, releasing a pent-up breath.

"I'm sorry, Cas. I'm really, incredibly sorry, and I really hope you end up forgiving m-us, because I--I miss your voice."

Castiel opens his mouth, wanting to reply, but he can't call up any sound from his vocal cords. He stays in his curled up position, facing away from Dean.

After a couple minutes, Dean sighs, and turns the radio on.

\--

At their next motel, Dean acts more subdued than usual, smiling tightly when Castiel looks at him, but retreating more and more every time he gets a nod instead of words in response to a question. Castiel wants so badly to reach out, to just say Dean's name, but every time he opens his mouth nothing comes out. Every time, he would suddenly think of what Dean said in the car, and part of himself would reluctantly agree that yes, he fell for the Winchesters, and yes, it wasn't worth it, because he is nothing but a deadweight here, useful to nobody, least of all the two brothers. And no matter how desperately he wants to, Castiel cannot forgive himself for sacrificing all that he had for a life of always falling behind the Winchesters, who are so much more experienced than he in being human.

He cannot forgive the Winchesters for being so unashamedly _human_.

Castiel lays awake, listening to Dean's slow breathing, his snores developing in magnitude as the night progresses. He listens to the sound that Dean so easily surrenders into the air, even when unconscious, and he touches his own throat.

Castiel climbs slowly out of bed, grateful for the absence of creaking springs. He pads to the bathroom in bare feet, closing the door behind him, the soft "snick" of the door the only noise that penetrates the cacophony of Dean's snoring.

Suddenly determined, Castiel stares at himself in the mirror, and opens his mouth. He will speak tonight, because Dean is being constantly pained by his refusal to speak, and Castiel's priority has long since shifted from the greater good to Dean's happiness.

 _Dean's doing this for you_ , a voice says in his head.

A sob wrenches out of him, cutting through the thick silence, and Castiel stares at his mouth in the mirror in shock.

 _Dean's doing this for you_ , he repeats to himself in his mind.

Another sob, louder.

Castiel grips the edges of the sink, and says determinedly to his own blue eyes: "Dean."

_He's doing this for you._

_He wants your forgiveness._

_It's not his fault._

Castiel cries, because Dean wants him to stay, because Dean is sorry, because it was never Dean's fault, or Sam's, because Castiel lost his wings, because Castiel _chose_ this, because Castiel is human, because he _chose_ humanity, over everything else.

Castiel cries, and through his sobs, he's whispering, "Dean, Dean, _Dean_."

\--

The Grand Canyon truly lives up to its name. It's even more glorious than when Castiel last saw it, many eons ago, when he briefly glimpsed its formation as he whirled past in a blaze of Heavenly purpose.

Now, he has time to take it in slowly, and appreciate every pebble and clump of dirt that clings to his shoes. Dean grins at his wonder, and has to pull him back from the railing multiple times when he leans a bit too far out, seeking a wider view. Castiel opens his eyes as wide as they can go, and they walk out to the extended walkway, the furthest into the canyon they could go, and Castiel once again breathes in fresh air spiraling through the curving cliffsides. This far out, he can ignore all other signs of civilization, and just look, watching birds fly above the wide crevasses. He can pretend that he's back to where he was all those eons ago, watching his brothers and sisters shape the canyon in that split second before he moved on.

But he finds that he doesn't want to go back to that time. He finds that with Dean's warm presence at his side and the cold metal of the railing beneath his fingers, he's enjoying this experience so much more than when he was an angel.

He's enjoying the experience more as a human.

The thought hits him like a sledgehammer, and Castiel lifts his hands to his face, fingers roaming over his human features, and he realizes, after all this time, that what he fell for has been in front of him this whole time.

"Cas?"

Castiel turns, and he smiles at Dean, a wide, gummy smile, genuinely happy.

"Dean," he says, and Dean's face clears for the first time in a month, and he laughs, that wonderful, beautiful laugh of his.

"Cas!"

Castiel laughs with him, and reaches his hands up to Dean's face. Dean quiets, still smiling.

"Dean," Castiel whispers, and kisses him.

Dean freezes at first, then responds enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around Castiel's waist. They kiss and kiss, and it feels like it'll never be enough, and it's the best thing Castiel has ever experienced.

This, _this_ , right here, is what Castiel fell for, what he sacrificed everything for, and he will never let himself forget it again.


End file.
